Today is Memorial Day. I think about our veterans alot, because without them I would not be here today. I am incredibly thankful for their sacrifice. I do not take it for granted.
On Friday night we drove up to Sadler's Creek Park in South Carolina. This is a campground that's on a huge lake on the SC/GA border. The place has a fishing pier for my husband and nature trails for me. We made it up to our tent campsite that evening. By the time we got settled in and went down to the lake it looked something like this..
We hang around at the lake for a few minutes while the dog played in the water. Then we had our camp dinner - mine was Frito pie and my husband's was hot dogs. And of course we had smores. Our style of camping is simple - tent, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and some basic supplies. No electricity - maybe just some battery powered lanterns/flashlights and a radio. Everything is cooked on the fire or with boiling water - we have a Jetboil from a previous backcountry camping trip where no fires were allowed. Other than taking pictures, I picked up my phone maybe 2 times during the whole trip. Life is nice and simple when I'm camping.
Unfortunately for us - this was a highly populated and tightly packed campground. I expected it to be crowded on a holiday weekend but the sites were closer together than any other campground I've been to. And there were many many families with young kids. Like... kids that are way too young to be camping. My husband was at his wit's end because our camping neighbor had a kid that cried ALL NIGHT LONG. It was also very hot that night. I was able to fall asleep in about an hour but he pretty much didn't get any sleep.
But at least I got to wake up to this. This is what I love about camping. Falling asleep under the stars. Opening my eyes and seeing trees. The chirping birds, cool breeze, and morning sunlight were nice touches too.
The morning was nice - we got up, had our coffee, and set to work on breakfast. Grits and bacon! And of course we had a conversation about fitness over breakfast. Afterwards we headed to the pier so my husband could fish. I suited up in my running gear to go check out the bike trail. There was a 6.5 mile trail and a .5 mile walking trail. I ended up on the .5 mile trail by accident, so I ran that and moved onward to where the 6.5 trail started. The trail was all forest. Some small hills, nothing too steep though. I caught some brief glimpses of the lake through the trees. The trail crossed over the main road several times. I made my way around the park, to the "primitive campsite" which looked to be a picnic shelter. Then I encountered a few more small hills and alot of pinestraw. Running on pinestraw kind of sucks, it's slippery and makes the trail hard to see. I meant for this to be a leisurely run, but it's hard to turn off my "I wanna go fast!!!" switch. All of a sudden the trail abruptly ended in a ball field. I scanned the treeline to see if I could locate the rest of it, but I didn't see anything. I was really confused. So I started to run alongside the road. Saw an entrance to the trail again but it forked to the right, which was the direction I just came from. I wasn't sure if this would put me back on the same section of trail. So I just decided to run back towards the pier instead of risking getting lost - something I excel at! The run ended up being about 4 miles. I guess that's for the best because I didn't have a ton of energy anyway. But man did I feel great afterwards. Walked out onto the pier, popped open a beer (lime flavor!) and enjoyed my runner's high on the water. Easily among the best beers I've ever had.
Our day was filled with pier time - my husband was fishing but they weren't biting. I just loved being in the sun and around the water - with some music and beer.
Me and the dog went swimming in the lake that evening.
We got back to camp around 5 and prepared for dinner - and to head home. My husband couldn't possibly bear another night of sleeping around all those noisy people. He has trouble sleeping as it is so I don't blame him. So we packed our stuff while our fire got hot, ate dinner, then hit the road and got home around 8:30. But not before my husband snapped a picture of me !
I think the trip worked out nicely. Despite all the annoying people it was quite relaxing. I think our next camping trip might be Black Rock Mountain or something along those lines. This one wasn't really "for us" - the search continues!
Aside from that we've been doing nothing, running errands, had tasty food at Genghis Grill, and I did shoulders/triceps/back this morning. Oh and we watched Pain and Gain - the bodybuilder murderer movie! Good stuff.
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